Common Ground Board Meeting – July 2013 – Minutes

Present: Michael Doolittle, Claudia Merson, Jane Lee, Bob Parker, Frank Mitchell, Monique Frasier, Kim Futrell, John Jessen, Joel Tolman, Melissa Spear,

Regrets:  Ben Gardner

Consent Agenda items: Bob moved to approve meeting minutes and Jane was the second.

Program reports: Camp season is speeding along (today 280 kids all present?). Improvements to the water line—necessary because of the building construction— have finished and the upper campus is reconnected.  The project began just before camp started but was slightly delayed when the group left briefly for work on Whalley Avenue.

Teachers have completed the summer institute, though some are still around the building.  A few are working with a consultant on an American Earth anthology published by library of America, which supports curriculum standards for Common Core.  The new teachers have arrived with interesting backgrounds: one taught IT, another is a jazz pianist connected to Neighborhood Music School, and another is interested in the bilingual environmental issues.

The gardening program now offers clinics with the first at the Little Red Hen in West River.  It will be a drop in class on pests and weeds.  The Mobile Market has begun its season and has doubled the number of locations from last year.  School garden resource center will do a broad survey of state schools with support of Commissioner of Education’s office.  The sponsorship makes it possible to partner with other regions to expand upon work tested at Common Ground.  Supporters include Newman’s, Merck, Dan L. and a new alliance with Fresh New London.

Auditors will be arriving soon.

Business requiring approval: (Gray Organschi $10,946 Elm Shakespeare $10,889 Corporate Systems Consulting  $10,500, and rent installment)

Claudia made the motion to approve these payments and Michael’s was the second voice.  Board voted to approve these payments.

Leave and Employee definitions: Melissa presented the plan to create employee pay classes and formalize the leave policy.  She distributed an updated chart.  The new plan would formalize 3 employee categories— full time teacher, full time support staff member, full time regular employee.

For Maternity leave Melissa proposed 3 weeks of leave to be used in the first 9 months of the birth. The employee must be full time for 24 months before taking the leave. See policy.  There will need to be some way of updating everyone on the new policy and confirming that they have reviewed it.

Bob made the motion to approve the leave policy and Jane was the second.  The board voted to approve.

Claudia moved the motion to accept the language for employee classification (Common Ground High School Employee, Common Ground Employee, Common Ground certified teacher) and Michael is the second voice.  The board approved the motion.

Events and Campaign: Joel announced the US Dept. of Education and USDA tour of best practices for federal green ribbon school and Funk on the Farm scheduled for the next couple weeks.  Following that will be Feast on sat Sept 28.  The campaign push continues to reach 1.5 million for the groundbreaking proposed for first week of October.  A $250,00 match pool would be a great development.

Construction: By Aug 28 the state reviewers should finish and we’ll we incorporate comments so by mid Sept we should have complete CD documents.

Meeting adjourned and board moved to executive session.

2014-07-30T18:10:04-04:00

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